Prop Hammers

These hammers were commissioned by a local student film production. They needed a real hammer, a foam hammer, and a plastic hammer for use in a film and they all needed to appear to be the same hammer. To achieve this, I took a real hammer and separated the handle from the head. I made copies of the handle with balsa wood so that there would be no safety risks when swinging the plastic and foam hammers near the camera or cast and crew. I then made a mold of the head, and cast multiple copies using Smooth On's Smooth-Cast 300 and Smooth On Foam-iT! 5. The foam it line comes in multiple densities, and I specifically selected 5 as it needed to be light enough that there were no saftey risks, but strong enough that it wouldn't flex on camera while being swung. After the castings were made, it was time to finish the hammers. The handles were finished with a combination of paints and stains to match the original handle. They were then sprayed with lacquer to allow any debris or liquid to be cleaned from them easily between takes. The heads were finished with Rub N Buff for a metallic sheen before being weathered with a series of washes. Overall, I'm quite happy with how these turned out and loved getting to work on another film.